Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: Laurian R. Bowles, "Headstrong: Women Porters, Blackness, and Modernity in Accra" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

Host: Jesse Cohen
Guest: Dr. Laurian R. Bowles
Date: September 24, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features Dr. Laurian R. Bowles, Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Davidson College, discussing her ethnographic book Headstrong: Women Porters, Blackness, and Modernity in Accra. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork in Ghana's Makola Market, Bowles explores the lives of female porters (kayayei) as a lens into gender, race, urban transformation, labor, and the politics of modernity in Accra. The conversation probes histories of the marketplace, the complexity of ethnic and racial identities, black feminist methodologies, and the resilience and agency of women navigating challenging social and economic landscapes.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dr. Bowles' Academic and Personal Journey (02:23)

• Roots in Philadelphia and Carolina; background in Journalism, African American Studies, and Anthropology.
• Her study abroad at University of Ghana was transformative, shaping her personal and academic path (03:33).

2. Genesis of the Book & The Makola Market as Fieldsite (03:33–11:36)

• First visited Ghana as an undergrad and found markets "frenetic, high-paced, but oddly familiar" (03:54).
• The book centers on Makola Market, a historic site of women's economic strength and state management:
  • "Makola Market is probably the epicenter of economic life for much of the city." (06:09)
  • Created by British colonial authorities in 1924 for tax and social management purposes.
  • A site of both female empowerment and patriarchal pushback, e.g. when regimes blamed and even destroyed the market under accusations against women traders.

3. Why Focus on Women Porters? (11:36–15:21)

• Porters ("kayayei") are not traders, but laborers transporting goods on their heads—essential but often stigmatized.

• Many are rural-to-urban migrants, often from Ghana's north.

• Portering reveals social hierarchy, mobility, and precarity outside classic "success stories" of market traders.

  “It’s something curious about being able to study people who are not selling goods, but are selling labor. And what is the bodily impact of that?”
  — Dr. Bowles (12:34)

4. Concepts of Modernity, Race, and "Northernness" (15:23–38:11)

• Ghana’s urban/rural and north/south divides:

  • Accra as symbol of progress/modernity; northern migrants often seen as “primordial” or “backward.”
  • “Northernness” functions as a racialized and ethnicized marker in urban ideologies—linked historically to labor extraction and the legacy of both colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.
  • Bowles argues these politics of person and place echo global anti-blackness.

  “Northernness... are categorizations much more akin to the logics of race and blackness and anti-blackness than are often seated in a Ghanaian context.”
  — Dr. Bowles (32:12)

5. Methodologies: Black Feminist Ethnography, Photovoice, and "Sense Work" (21:06–30:39)

• Centers Black and African feminist theory and practice.

• Photovoice: Participants take photos to express and narrate experiences beyond oral interviews.

  • Photos stay with the women as keepsakes; meaning becomes part of their own social life (29:10).

• Sense work: Attending to emotion, affect, and interiority—not just statistics about precarity.

• Emphasizes “mutuality,” humility, and respect for participants’ autonomy and refusal.

  “There’s a dearth of knowledge that is produced about the interiority of people’s lives, especially African women’s lives.”
  — Dr. Bowles (25:40)

  “If we listen more and try to talk at less, yes, we can learn something really valuable...”
  — Dr. Bowles (51:38)

6. "Ness" and Social Identity (31:28–38:11)

• Explores the English suffix "-ness" to discuss "northernness," "blackness," and the lived sensibility and affect of these categories.
• North/south, rural/urban, blackness/anti-blackness, and ethnicity—all intersect within people’s everyday lives, and shape women porters' opportunities and struggles.
• "Northernness" is both a source of pride and cohesion, and a locus of discrimination.

7. Black Femme Sociality & The "Care Infrastructure" (39:35–46:57)

• Spotlight on chapter "Queering Polygamy":

  • Explores how porters build and sustain care communities and resist social norms around marriage, family, and sexuality.
  • Multiplicity—of relationships, homeplaces, and ways of caring—subvert and reimagine kinship norms.

  “There’s not a romanticizing of the work that they do... They recreate the sensibilities of the places that they value and they love with passion, and that lives inside the micro-context spaces...”
  — Dr. Bowles (42:03)

• NGO interventions often misperceive needs, yet women creatively leverage such programming for their own ends (45:07–46:57).

8. Nicknames as Social Practice and Relational Knowledge (46:57–50:36)

• Nicknames express intimacy, history, age, class, and self-making within black communities.

• Offers nuanced insight into the intersectionality of race, gender, and kinship.

  “Nicknames, I think, allow us to mark age, they mark class, they mark location, they mark different kinds of intimacies and distances... what nicknames reveal is the multiplicity of self.”
  — Dr. Bowles (47:09)

9. Takeaways & Intervention in Scholarship (50:54–54:22)

• Bowles urges embracing complexity, rejecting simple narratives of victimhood or heroism:

  “Rather than thinking about these kind of dichotomous selves... I would like for us to think about the kind of assets and cultural creativity that people have, even if they are at the lower rungs of socioeconomic status...”
  — Dr. Bowles (51:22)

• Seeks to bridge Black Studies and African Studies through a black feminist lens and citational practice, making explicit the contribution of black women’s theory, method, and voice.

10. Reflections and Surprises from Fieldwork (54:22–59:02)

• Surprised by participants’ eagerness to see how they are represented in the book.
• Conversations about race, class, and success were welcomed and opened up new conversations even among Ghanaians.

11. Future Projects (59:08–60:47)

• Research on material culture—especially the social life of aluminum and bauxite linked to portering, and the interplay between infrastructure, class, and gig work.
• Family history documenting migration from the Carolinas to Philadelphia.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On market chaos:
  “Upon first impression [markets] always appear ... chaotic, unruly, disorganized. But... they follow the same kind of tidy organization that we expect from Western market spaces.”
  — Dr. Bowles (08:30)

• On mutuality and refusal in ethnography:
  “How do we honor the autonomies of refusal? When people tell you no, what do you do and what do they also do?... It also pushes against this idea of the lone soul researcher...”
  — Dr. Bowles (29:10)

• On care as infrastructure:
  “I’m putting these two ideas together, that the intangible is pretty substantive and sustaining... even if they don’t necessarily look like the way in which we imagine a well loved or well lived life should look.”
  — Dr. Bowles (42:07)

• On resisting tropes of victimhood and heroism:
  “Poor people might actually be the vanguard in terms of creatively thinking ourselves out of the various crises... If we listen more and try to talk less, we can learn something really valuable.”
  — Dr. Bowles (52:00, 51:38)

• On blending Black Studies and African Studies:
  “There’s a distance oftentimes between African Studies and Black Studies ... I strive to see the contributing values of both through the lens of black feminism. And that’s part of what I strive to do.”
  — Dr. Bowles (52:42)

Important Timestamps

• 02:23 – Dr. Bowles’ academic and personal backstory
• 03:33 – First experiences in Ghana and attachment to market spaces
• 04:41 – Origins and meanings behind the title “Headstrong”
• 08:30 – Description of Makola Market’s organization and gender politics
• 11:43 – Motives for studying women porters
• 15:36 – How women porters intersect with discourses of modernity, race, and class
• 21:27 – Explanation of photovoice & Black feminist methodologies
• 32:12 – The concept of "northernness" and race/ethnicity in Ghana
• 39:46 – Black femme sociality, care infrastructure, queering polygamy
• 46:57 – Nicknames and the multiplicity of identity
• 50:54 – Final takeaways for readers
• 59:08 – Upcoming and ongoing projects

Tone and Style

Dr. Bowles brings warmth, humor, and humility throughout, balancing incisive political critique with rich ethnographic storytelling. Her engagement with Black feminist perspectives and ethical care for her interlocutors is evident in her language, which is accessible yet deeply reflective.

For Further Engagement

• Follow Dr. Laurian Bowles on Instagram/BlueSky: @DrLaurian (60:47)
• Book: Headstrong: Women Porters, Blackness, and Modernity in Accra (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

This episode provides a nuanced, intimate, and theoretically-rich window into women’s labor, blackness, and the everyday making of modernity in contemporary Ghana—challenging listeners to embrace the richness and contradictions of African women’s lives.